Is the internet killing religion?
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No not at all. At the end of the day, people still need a reason to live and be good. Atheism hasn't provided it. Modern atheism is more extreme and dogmatic than modern Christianity. Its one fierce dogma just shouting out the others.
If you need a sky daddy so you don't slit your wrists or do bad things, then you need serious help.
Atheists have no "dogma" other than there is no god and religion should not be forced on others. Everyone is an atheist when it comes to other people's religion.
Agree completely, don't know why you're getting bashed for this critical response. Atheists just seem loud to religious folks because NOT BELIEVING is at the core of its beliefs.
I sometimes find it funny to read religion statistics and to see atheism usually around 10-20% in a given area. I'm in my 20s and I would say from personal experience that most youth are not buying religion. In fact I barely know anyone around my age who would consider themselves religious.
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The quote function's not working for me today, so I'll cut and paste.
"If you need a sky daddy so you don't slit your wrists or do bad things, then you need serious help. "
Typical patronizing, emotionally autistic response from a half witted socially retarded atheist
"Atheists have no "dogma" other than there is no god and religion should not be forced on others. Everyone is an atheist when it comes to other people's religion. "
Bullshit. Neo-atheism has all the hallmarks of a cargo cult. It has a missionary zeal and a fundamentalist profile. It has cult leaders, viz.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9286682/the-bizarre-and-costly-cult-of-richard-dawkins/
You were the one that said people need religion so they have a reason to live. You also said that people need the threat of going to hell to do good.
That is extremely pathetic reasons to believe in god{s}.
Atheists don't need religion/god{s} to have a reason to live or do good. That's the difference.
So call my previous reply as "emotionally autistic" but I stated the truth.
As for Dawkins and his comments about babies being born without a religion, he is 100% correct. It's not surprising that kids are the same religion/non religion as their parents.
Santa and the Easter bunny have more evidence that they exist than god does. Every years kids all over get presents from Santa. What does god do for those same kids?
What reasons do people have to be ethical and live good lives? Religion is a part of this for many. And people do need a reason to live good lives. We don't do this instinctually. Indeed, no sentient beings do. No baby is born atheist either. Babies just don't have the critical faculties to make existential and philosophical decisions. Billions of people still worship god or gods, very few worship santa claus (although santa claus is based on an Orthodox saint)
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Ok, if babies aren't born atheist (not believing in god{s}), then tell us exactly what god{s} they are born believing in.
I don't need a sky daddy to give me a reason not to slit my wrists. Nor do I need the threat of hell to be a good person. I pity anyone who does need those things.
BTW, believers always love to drag out communist dictators, but at the same time deny their own such as the half jewish catholic known as Adolf Hitler. Why aren't his crimes counted in the religious column? It seems like dishonesty to me. The same goes for countless other believers who murdered millions upon millions. And please don't use the 'no true Scotsman" fallacy.
Also, no leader murdered in the name of atheism, unlike the countless ones who did it in the name of religion.
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I see a lot of names here that I imagine Santa recognizes from his naughty list (also known as my potential dating pool).
In the end it all boils down to belief, even this topic "Is the internet killing religion?" is basically whether or not you believe this to be true. All fine and dandy believe what you want or don't want but when you start burning people in cages & disseminating it you have taken your belief too far & it is time for the internet to rise up with the intent of knocking your belief back into the middle ages.
The beliefs of this post do not necessarily reflect true belief. All hail Gilligan!
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“When a new technology, such as the printing press or the Internet, unleashes massive cultural change, the challenge to religion is immense. Cultural developments change how God, or the ultimate, is thought of and spoken about,” Cheryl Casey wrote.
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Ok, if babies aren't born atheist (not believing in god{s}), then tell us exactly what god{s} they are born believing in.
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They don't believe, and nor do they disbelieve. You should learn what being an atheist actually means, this discussion might actually be productive.I don't need a sky daddy to give me a reason not to slit my wrists. Nor do I need the threat of hell to be a good person. I pity anyone who does need those things.
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I don't need a strawman argument to point out how pointless your contribution really is on this subject.BTW, believers always love to drag out communist dictators, but at the same time deny their own such as the half jewish catholic known as Adolf Hitler. Why aren't his crimes counted in the religious column? It seems like dishonesty to me. The same goes for countless other believers who murdered millions upon millions. And please don't use the 'no true Scotsman" fallacy.
Also, no leader murdered in the name of atheism, unlike the countless ones who did it in the name of religion.
So you count a guy with a very unconventional religious beliefs, who in semi-private despised Christianity, try to invoke the 'no troo Scotsman' fallacy, (and indeed no Christian has ever killed in harmony with the teachings of Christ. As you and many others have pointed out, killing is not against atheism. Atheism's only tenet is of unbelief in God(s). Therefore, mass murder cannot be against the tenets of atheism) yet try to pretend away the mass butchery by atheists, in order to promote atheism? And its not only the 20th century. Perhaps you might like to learn about the French Revolution as well. You may as well say black is white. Perhaps you have a 'no God' delusion
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“When a new technology, such as the printing press or the Internet, unleashes massive cultural change, the challenge to religion is immense. Cultural developments change how God, or the ultimate, is thought of and spoken about,” Cheryl Casey wrote.
Yes, and the spread of ideas will never harm the truth.
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They don't believe, and nor do they disbelieve. You should learn what being an atheist actually means, this discussion might actually be productive.
That's getting a bit snotty.
Atheists don't believe in god{s}.
Babies don't believe in god{s}, until someone fills their heads with lies.
So you count a guy with a very unconventional religious beliefs, who in semi-private despised Christianity, try to invoke the 'no troo Scotsman' fallacy, (and indeed no Christian has ever killed in harmony with the teachings of Christ. As you and many others have pointed out, killing is not against atheism. Atheism's only tenet is of unbelief in God(s). Therefore, mass murder cannot be against the tenets of atheism) yet try to pretend away the mass butchery by atheists, in order to promote atheism? And its not only the 20th century. Perhaps you might like to learn about the French Revolution as well. You may as well say black is white. Perhaps you have a 'no God' delusion
OK, so you played the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Good for you.
You confuse murder IN THE NAME OF vs MURDER BY.
See, you are being a hypocrite here. If an atheist does something wrong, you blame atheism. If a believer does something wrong, you blame the individual or whatever else you can find to keep it from being viewed in anyway related to religion.
Maybe you should read your bible for once. There's some pretty nasty stuff in there, unless you think god sending a bear to kill a bunch of kids for laughing at a man for being bald. I guess you like slavery too, since that's a good thing in the bible. What about joyfully throwing babies down the rocks below? What about slaughtering entire villages, except the virgin girls who are then used as sex slaves? Yeah, this is where you try to throw in massive amounts of apologetics to justify and distance yourself from what the bible says.
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Don't forget about the whole mass genocide that is called for in several places… Or maybe I should mention that the bible condones rape marriages, child slavery, the execution of homosexuals, and a few other things. These are reasons why I say that the bible should NOT be used as a book of morals by any standards.
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I knew at a very young age the bible wasn't for me (and also caused my mother's questioning of faith) when I was never given an explanation as to how if incest was forbidden where did all the babies come from.
By the time we got to the holy ghost I knew I was no longer a christian.
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That's a big part of why I have turned more to the native methods of doing things. Granted, they do not have any physical proof of a great number of details, however in trying to "debunk" (for lack of a better term) their methods or otherwise question them, I have never actually been able to find any proof of any sort that either proves that it isn't true or that otherwise contradicts something else in their methods and teachings.
By the same token, when I myself have tried a few of their methods for accomplishing certain things, I actually found it quite interesting that each and every time without fail, there was some sort of freak coincidence (or so it seemed at the time) that happened to magically fall in line with exactly what I had put out to the universe to ask for. Granted, there are some basic ground rules that need to be taken into account when doing that kind of thing, however I still can't shake it off as bing just a coincidence, especially seeing as how every time that every time that I have opened myself to their ways and gave things a try, I always saw results.
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So, in this instance, the internet is not killing religion. I am not exactly sure which "native methods" are being employed but still a religion. May have to work on my tax the church campaign so we're able to collect some cold hard cash from the religions that don't have physical churches!
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**The Internet opens up new ways of thinking to those living in homogeneous environments..
It also allows those with doubts to find like-minded individuals around the world!
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Internet is a tool. A powerful information tool. I dont think is killing religion though. But it provides other points of view and that may "wake up" people who want to.
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I really can't believe society is so low these days! They should not be so dramatic!
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No, it doesen't even make sense for me
Yes, people can become atheist by reading some things on internet, seem diferent opinions, etc
but this is information, you still can do it off lineinternet is just a form to get it easily
check my public acts tumblr: aroundthere-vids.tumblr.com 
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If internet helps people get over religion that is great. But the other side is also using it to gain new followers, so that can be problem as well.
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No, it doesen't even make sense for me
Yes, people can become atheist by reading some things on internet, seem diferent opinions, etc
but this is information, you still can do it off lineinternet is just a form to get it easily
I totally agree.. the Internet makes though the whole process much easier..
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I'm kind of on the fence about this one… On one hand, there are religious groups that use the internet to send out their "message", on the other hand, there are too many anti-religion groups out there who want nothing more than to silence every religion. That's the down side of a world-wide network. To some extent, the internet does "kill" religion as it offers a more scientific perspective to the outside world, which most religions do not exactly like.
So the argument could go either way really... It's all a matter of where you go looking on the internet. There are even people (and I am one of them) who are dead set against the churches being tax exempt. That's just plain wrong in my view because it allows the richest organizations in the world the ability to avoid having to pay any taxes, thus contributing back to their communities, while the members of said churches suffer and on the most part, a lot of them struggle to make ends meet.... It just doesn't make sense.
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I suppose one could make this very simple and say sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Since we have never known world without religion and will not for many centuries, if ever, it impossible to objectively measure its presence or absence.
However, with regard to babies or very young children, they will poke out a sibling's eye or push anything off the table and break it. Not intentionally in every case, but in many cases. The point being children are interested in self to the exclusion of everything else. So it follows, I think, that while religion won't guarantee everyone to be good all the time, it asks people to try. I can't imagine how the mass of people would behave without this foundation of even trying.
Another good example - I went to Unity for a while. They almost always talked about light and love, higher consciousness etc. and seldom about sin and "wrong." They never spoke with denigration about any other religion but strongly implied one did not need a list of sins as most of Christianity has. Many many younger adults took this to mean "do whatever you personally feel is right" where the older people raised in "traditional" Christianity had a very different interpretation.
Ultimately, I don't know what the answer is. I have said this in other philosophy/religion posts - often it seems we exchange one set of problems for another. People of earlier times were taught sex after marriage, especially women (purity/virginity etc.) Now people live together (when I was kid it was called "living in sin".) and reproduce, moving from partner to partner. Still a great many are unhappy, personally and sexually. I think looser moral codes benefit the attractive more, they may flit from flower to flower without nearly as much social disapproval…..And while not directly related to the subject at hand, money and attractiveness argue against polygamy since if a few men had all the women, many men would have none, causing social unrest........the much larger point being philosophy and religion at its best seeks to understand human behavior and hopefully modify it for a larger societal goal.
